(no subject)
Jun. 12th, 2010 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lorannahOK, so I've been meaning to write this post for ages and now seemed as good a time as any. So on for the sticky subject of BBC's 'Merlin', Guenivere and the subject of race. Dedicated to such_heights, on the occasion of her birthday as my creative juices have flown the coop recently and because she loves Gwen as every right thinking person should.
So, around 'Merlin' fandom I have seen many complaints and arguments about why it is terribly wrong for Gwen to be black, or for their to be any black people in the show - because back then England was just terribly terribly white, don't you know. Or, as it turns out, not so much...
Some notes on history, Merlin and arguing about the two.
First up I wanted to make a general comment on a thing that really baffles me whenever anyway talks about history and 'Merlin' - it makes my eyebrows furrow and gives me headaches and all I really end up wanting to ask is "But when are you talking about?" Because, here's the thing - we really don't know when 'Merlin' is set. It could be any part of a wide range of dates - the legend itself manages to stake out a vast period of history for it's possible date. Was Arthur around fighting the Romans or did he spring up after they left? Was it later? Or should we consider it Medieval, given that so much we think of as the core legend was added and reflects that period, even if Arthur couldn't have existed then?
The show is similarly baffling, consciously I believe, in it's time period - containing a wide range of anachronisms. I like the anachronisms. I think it is a fundamental joy of the Arthurian legends that they have become timeless, not anchored to any one period - I like that the show has chosen to go that way too. It makes it freer.
Also, I have to admit I find it a little silly to see people complaining about the tomatoes (is that really ruining your enjoyment of the show?) and ignoring the big issues - like the dragon. I mean, come on, we have no evidence outside of folklore that dragons ever existed and given that they were supposed to be massive you'd think one would have turned up in the archaeological record (*I totally have an explanation for that by the way - dragons=totally real). And even if they had existed, there's no way with the technology available during "that time period" (c) that could have allowed them to safely build a castle on caverns big enough to allow a dragon to fly out of sight.
Hell we don't even know if 'Merlin' is actually supposed to be set in our history, or on another planet or on a parallel universe.
Lets just say, archaeology just doesn't make good TV (I'm not allowed to watch Time Team either).
So that said, this has been an attitude I've been seeing around a lot since 'Merlin' started:
"OMG, the BBC has gotten ridiculous with their colour blind casting, how can Guenivere be black - everyone knows there are no black people in the UK in the past."
Which, when you really look at it, is just rubbish. On many, many levels. But mostly because there have been people who aren't white in Britain for a very long time.
You see there are reasons we think of the past as white. Partly it's because a lot of time when we see a period TV show all the actors are white (and beautiful and suspiciously clean) and a worrying number of our ideas about history come from TV shows. Similarly art/museums/school books all perpetuate this myth. I'd like that to stop sometime soon, please.
Mostly though it's because most of the time white people have been the ones with the opportunity to write things down and they have a tendency to gloss over things or just forget them or sometimes to lie, particularly when it benefited them. And when, for example, black people were brought over during the slave trade or on the SS Windrush, it suited them to view black people as other and not belonging so that they could use them and hate them and paint them as an invasion. It suited them to ignore the things that messed with that impression.
And things that aren't written down are forgotten. Though that doesn't mean the things that are written down are true.
So, as the National Archives explains:
"People of African and Asian origin have lived in Britain for at least two millennia. They arrived here many hundreds of years before the massive forced migrations sparked by the slave trade and the British colonisation of India."
And there's a lot of evidence to support that. There's DNA evidence and archaeological evidence and evidence from cultural studies and, when you know where to look for it, written evidence.
Tacitus, a Roman historian mentioned "the dark complexion of the Silures or Black Celts, and maintained that a black aboriginal race lived side by side with a white one in the British Isle in Pre-Roman times." Pliny agreed describing the 2nd AD Britons as Ethopian. Similarly Geoffrey of Monmouth (you know, the guy who's usually in the library frowning at Merlin) when describing the invasion of the Saxons, explains that the ruler of Britain, Keredic had to send for Gormund the African, ruler of Ireland who sent a force to Britain. And one of Arthur's better known knights, Palamedes, is normally described as 'The Saracen', a culture based near Egypt and Palestine.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
So how did they get here?
Lots and lots of ways, for starters they might have been here before white people - we know now that in the earliest periods of human history there was a lot more population movement than we previously believed. Trade undoubtedly would have brought people to our shores, some of whom would have settled - we were known as the Tin Islands since the Bronze Age, a vital resource. This tin trade was mostly, at least in the beginning, controlled by the Northern African cultures of Carthage and Phoenicia. Trade routes also opened opportunities for building relationships between cultures and would have encouraged other travel (trade is a pet topic of mine) - empty boats coming to collect tin or other resources may have brought travellers with them. And even without those trading routes, curious wanderers would find ways across.
More importantly we have the movement of Roman soldiers. When Britain was invaded 20,000 Roman soldiers came across and a large proportion of them were from Africa. And traditionally, when the brunt of the invasion had been completed, many of these soldiers would have settled in the region. It was portrayed as a reward and solved a myriad of problems - particularly - how do you make sure a country remains subdued and what do you do with all the rowdy soldiers that you no longer need and don't want cluttering up your home.
By the time the Romans left, generation after generation had passed and many of those original soldier settlers ancestors probably considered themselves more British than Roman. Even the invasions that followed may have been less pure white than we now imagine. For example, in the Norse sagas black Norsemen like Thorhall the Hunter and Thorstein the Black are mentioned - so who knows what exactly the Vikings ravashing our shores looked like.
"But isn't it unrealistic to have so many black characters in a city like Camelot/ holding prominent positions?"
Not particularly. The trade routes mentioned above would have focused on large cities, similarly many prominent cities were founded by the Roman troops. There are many reasons people might choose to stay in a larger group, especially when they're part of a minority. As for prominent positions, I think you and I might have different definitions of prominent - but that aside, skill is skill and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be used, especially considering the next question.
"So shouldn't we be dealing with racism?"
Simply speaking, we don't know. It's difficult to reconstruct things like this. It's certainly possible and if you want to explore that in fic or art or meta or anything else, I think that can be valid. But it's certainly not definitive and not the only way this can be approached as the show has shown. So personally I do not feel it is a flaw of the show that they haven't investigated racism in Camelot.
For example, there certainly may have been people coming from the countryside, like Merlin, who may never have seen a black person - but there may have been many others who had grown up knowing many. It's impossible to tell.
It is dangerous, however, to overlay our modern understanding of racism on a historical context. Ideas do not always translate - we do not always think in the same way as they did in the past. Nowadays we have a very strong inbuilt belief that people are divided by the colour of their skin. That may not have even been a consideration in the past - it was used as a descriptor - but so, more often, is the culture a person is from. Culture may have been considered more important than skin colour. A person who was brought up in Britain, whose family is British, may have simply been considered British.
Until we perfect that time machine we're obviously not working on, we just don't know. So whatever you want to do about the matter, have at it.
"Alright, but shouldn't Guenivere be off limits, I mean even her name means 'fair, white'"
Yep, I've actually seen this comment around and it makes me want to throw things. Because obviously all our names our perfect descriptions of who we are. I mean I'll give you that my name 'Girl' is fairly accurate. But my brothers name means 'Burnt land or hill' and my Grandfather's name means 'Elf-Friend' and I'm pretty certain he wasn't frollicking around the garden with any fairies. I mean, my other brother is called 'White hawk goes into battle' and though that's pretty spot on, I'm not going to tell him he has to change it or start wearing lots of feathers.
So no. Just stop.
OK, so I hope this has been maybe a little helpful one way or another. Please let me know if I've said anything offensive, I may have messed up and I'd be much happier getting it fixed.
such_heights, on the occasion of her birthday as my creative juices have flown the coop recently and because she loves Gwen as every right thinking person should.So, around 'Merlin' fandom I have seen many complaints and arguments about why it is terribly wrong for Gwen to be black, or for their to be any black people in the show - because back then England was just terribly terribly white, don't you know. Or, as it turns out, not so much...
Some notes on history, Merlin and arguing about the two.
First up I wanted to make a general comment on a thing that really baffles me whenever anyway talks about history and 'Merlin' - it makes my eyebrows furrow and gives me headaches and all I really end up wanting to ask is "But when are you talking about?" Because, here's the thing - we really don't know when 'Merlin' is set. It could be any part of a wide range of dates - the legend itself manages to stake out a vast period of history for it's possible date. Was Arthur around fighting the Romans or did he spring up after they left? Was it later? Or should we consider it Medieval, given that so much we think of as the core legend was added and reflects that period, even if Arthur couldn't have existed then?
The show is similarly baffling, consciously I believe, in it's time period - containing a wide range of anachronisms. I like the anachronisms. I think it is a fundamental joy of the Arthurian legends that they have become timeless, not anchored to any one period - I like that the show has chosen to go that way too. It makes it freer.
Also, I have to admit I find it a little silly to see people complaining about the tomatoes (is that really ruining your enjoyment of the show?) and ignoring the big issues - like the dragon. I mean, come on, we have no evidence outside of folklore that dragons ever existed and given that they were supposed to be massive you'd think one would have turned up in the archaeological record (*I totally have an explanation for that by the way - dragons=totally real). And even if they had existed, there's no way with the technology available during "that time period" (c) that could have allowed them to safely build a castle on caverns big enough to allow a dragon to fly out of sight.
Hell we don't even know if 'Merlin' is actually supposed to be set in our history, or on another planet or on a parallel universe.
But, yes, if you're going to complain about A, B or C being wrong for "that time period" (c) - it would make me a lot happier if you told me when you are talking about.
The other thing is - the thing that I think some people forget that history is not tidy. We don't know everything and we never will. There are lots of questions that we will never find answers to - so we guess. Trust me, a lot of archaeology is almost educated guess work. A lot of the time we're probably wrong. Even with relatively modern history we can make massive mistakes, which are then embarrassingly shown off when a new piece of evidence shows up, sniggering in the corner. When people talk in terms of cold facts or figures or absolutes it makes my historian's soul ache.
I like to think of this in the Bonekickers problem. I watched one episode of Bonekickers, in it they found a body with a mirror - apparently this definitively proved that the body was Boudicca because only queens in 'Celtic' times were allowed to own mirrors. Which made me wonder exactly when they went back in time and found out about the strange rules of mirror ownership in pre-historic times. Of course then they found 2000 year old live grenades and that paled into insignificance. I was never allowed to watch Bonekickers with my family again.Lets just say, archaeology just doesn't make good TV (I'm not allowed to watch Time Team either).
So that said, this has been an attitude I've been seeing around a lot since 'Merlin' started:
"OMG, the BBC has gotten ridiculous with their colour blind casting, how can Guenivere be black - everyone knows there are no black people in the UK in the past."
Which, when you really look at it, is just rubbish. On many, many levels. But mostly because there have been people who aren't white in Britain for a very long time.
You see there are reasons we think of the past as white. Partly it's because a lot of time when we see a period TV show all the actors are white (and beautiful and suspiciously clean) and a worrying number of our ideas about history come from TV shows. Similarly art/museums/school books all perpetuate this myth. I'd like that to stop sometime soon, please.
Mostly though it's because most of the time white people have been the ones with the opportunity to write things down and they have a tendency to gloss over things or just forget them or sometimes to lie, particularly when it benefited them. And when, for example, black people were brought over during the slave trade or on the SS Windrush, it suited them to view black people as other and not belonging so that they could use them and hate them and paint them as an invasion. It suited them to ignore the things that messed with that impression.
And things that aren't written down are forgotten. Though that doesn't mean the things that are written down are true.
So, as the National Archives explains:
"People of African and Asian origin have lived in Britain for at least two millennia. They arrived here many hundreds of years before the massive forced migrations sparked by the slave trade and the British colonisation of India."
And there's a lot of evidence to support that. There's DNA evidence and archaeological evidence and evidence from cultural studies and, when you know where to look for it, written evidence.
Tacitus, a Roman historian mentioned "the dark complexion of the Silures or Black Celts, and maintained that a black aboriginal race lived side by side with a white one in the British Isle in Pre-Roman times." Pliny agreed describing the 2nd AD Britons as Ethopian. Similarly Geoffrey of Monmouth (you know, the guy who's usually in the library frowning at Merlin) when describing the invasion of the Saxons, explains that the ruler of Britain, Keredic had to send for Gormund the African, ruler of Ireland who sent a force to Britain. And one of Arthur's better known knights, Palamedes, is normally described as 'The Saracen', a culture based near Egypt and Palestine.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
So how did they get here?
Lots and lots of ways, for starters they might have been here before white people - we know now that in the earliest periods of human history there was a lot more population movement than we previously believed. Trade undoubtedly would have brought people to our shores, some of whom would have settled - we were known as the Tin Islands since the Bronze Age, a vital resource. This tin trade was mostly, at least in the beginning, controlled by the Northern African cultures of Carthage and Phoenicia. Trade routes also opened opportunities for building relationships between cultures and would have encouraged other travel (trade is a pet topic of mine) - empty boats coming to collect tin or other resources may have brought travellers with them. And even without those trading routes, curious wanderers would find ways across.
More importantly we have the movement of Roman soldiers. When Britain was invaded 20,000 Roman soldiers came across and a large proportion of them were from Africa. And traditionally, when the brunt of the invasion had been completed, many of these soldiers would have settled in the region. It was portrayed as a reward and solved a myriad of problems - particularly - how do you make sure a country remains subdued and what do you do with all the rowdy soldiers that you no longer need and don't want cluttering up your home.
By the time the Romans left, generation after generation had passed and many of those original soldier settlers ancestors probably considered themselves more British than Roman. Even the invasions that followed may have been less pure white than we now imagine. For example, in the Norse sagas black Norsemen like Thorhall the Hunter and Thorstein the Black are mentioned - so who knows what exactly the Vikings ravashing our shores looked like.
"But isn't it unrealistic to have so many black characters in a city like Camelot/ holding prominent positions?"
Not particularly. The trade routes mentioned above would have focused on large cities, similarly many prominent cities were founded by the Roman troops. There are many reasons people might choose to stay in a larger group, especially when they're part of a minority. As for prominent positions, I think you and I might have different definitions of prominent - but that aside, skill is skill and there's no reason to think it wouldn't be used, especially considering the next question.
"So shouldn't we be dealing with racism?"
Simply speaking, we don't know. It's difficult to reconstruct things like this. It's certainly possible and if you want to explore that in fic or art or meta or anything else, I think that can be valid. But it's certainly not definitive and not the only way this can be approached as the show has shown. So personally I do not feel it is a flaw of the show that they haven't investigated racism in Camelot.
For example, there certainly may have been people coming from the countryside, like Merlin, who may never have seen a black person - but there may have been many others who had grown up knowing many. It's impossible to tell.
It is dangerous, however, to overlay our modern understanding of racism on a historical context. Ideas do not always translate - we do not always think in the same way as they did in the past. Nowadays we have a very strong inbuilt belief that people are divided by the colour of their skin. That may not have even been a consideration in the past - it was used as a descriptor - but so, more often, is the culture a person is from. Culture may have been considered more important than skin colour. A person who was brought up in Britain, whose family is British, may have simply been considered British.
Until we perfect that time machine we're obviously not working on, we just don't know. So whatever you want to do about the matter, have at it.
"Alright, but shouldn't Guenivere be off limits, I mean even her name means 'fair, white'"
Yep, I've actually seen this comment around and it makes me want to throw things. Because obviously all our names our perfect descriptions of who we are. I mean I'll give you that my name 'Girl' is fairly accurate. But my brothers name means 'Burnt land or hill' and my Grandfather's name means 'Elf-Friend' and I'm pretty certain he wasn't frollicking around the garden with any fairies. I mean, my other brother is called 'White hawk goes into battle' and though that's pretty spot on, I'm not going to tell him he has to change it or start wearing lots of feathers.
So no. Just stop.
OK, so I hope this has been maybe a little helpful one way or another. Please let me know if I've said anything offensive, I may have messed up and I'd be much happier getting it fixed.